SHARD

How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole. -- C. J. Jung

Maybe you have seen those nesting boxes, which you open from largest to smallest, perhaps, with each diminution, mentally devaluing the expected treasure. The point is to discourage you until you get to the final box, substantially smaller than the first, and find something of great value, be it personal, monetary or, as in the case of the splendid shard of Shansa, historical. But what if you were the shard? What if you were the rare gem or that lock of your great-grandmother’s hair? The discouragement is the same -- each time you think you’re out, you find yourself in another, bigger box, and your heart sinks, your will waivers, your hope evaporates wisp by wisp -- but the prize, far from being devalued, seems increasingly precious. It is your freedom.

There is, of course, another difference. The nesting boxes are a trick with a happy ending. The deeper your disappointment as you go along, the more delicious your delight when you discover your deserts. If you are inside fighting your way out, layer by layer, your discouragement will be unallayed by any such reversal. The intention is to keep you in.

On this particular occasion, I was the shard.

I woke up in the innermost box. I didn’t remember having left the TARDIS. In fact, there was a lot I didn’t remember, but I didn’t waste time trying. Even before my eyes were open I knew I was somewhere I didn’t want to be. I could feel how closely I was confined: something cold was lying across my throat, there wasn’t a lot of air and what air there was stank of death.

When I opened my eyes I couldn’t see much, as my container was not only tight but dark. It would have been slightly less tight (but no less dark) had I not been lying next to a dead body, whose arm is what I felt pressing against my throat.

I admit I jumped and instead of gently removing the arm from my throat I batted it away. Then, as angry at myself as at my situation, I punched the wall repeatedly, without injury, since my container was, after all, a cardboard box. Was its container, too, mere cardboard? Of course at the time I had no idea I was in nesting boxes. For all I knew, I was out of doors. My escape was hasty. I hadn’t considered that the box might be airtight and once escaped I would find myself floating in the vacuum of space, or sinking in an ocean (of water, if I was lucky, or of acid if I was not). No, I just punched my way out and found myself in a room of no great dimension, itself. There was a long cord snaking through an aperture in one wall, and it furnished power to a naked bulb. Almost apologetically, I pulled the corpse out of the box and set him -- for it was a young man who now would never live to worry about turning thirty, supporting a family, exploring space -- down across the creaking wooden floor, close enough to the bulb that I could examine his features. They were twisted into the most frightful grimace, whether at something itself fearful or at some horrific pain. No one had bothered to close his eyes. I hesitated, knowing they never could open again, but I learned nothing more from them, so I reached over with two fingers and lowered his lids.

The young man, whose dark brown hair was longer than my own and contrasted eerily against his paper-white skin, wore a white button-down shirt, faded now almost to gray, with rolled-up sleeves secured by red garters; khaki trousers, thick white socks and brown loafers. I unrolled one of the sleeves and found tucked therein a pair of small-gold-framed glasses. Trying them on, to assess the extent of his visual impairment, made me dizzy. I shook my head and, in a gesture no more or less useful than any other I could offer, arranged the specs properly on his face.

His remaining sleeve yielded a half-full pack of Venusian Venom cigarettes (for export only, as it is impossible to coax even the slightest flame out of the oxygen-free Venusian atmosphere), a bradawl and a few worn eight-dollar bills from Earth Seven. At first I tucked the Venoms back into his sleeve but then thought better of it and pocketed them, along with the bills. The bradawl I held tightly as I crawled over to the wall from which the cord emerged. Careful not to nick that cord, as I didn’t fancy fumbling around in the dark, and yet pushing the light away as its glare was half-blinding me, I applied the bradawl to the tiny opening in the wall and chipped away at it, expanding it, my hand shaking at first, then steadied by the determination that drove me. The young man was beyond help. Certainly I was not.